


This fic is about Scientology and Mark Lee

by fewfre



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Crack, F/M, Sex Telepathy, Smut, scientology, so glad i could contribute that tag
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-13
Updated: 2018-11-13
Packaged: 2019-08-23 08:33:38
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 21,212
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16615553
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fewfre/pseuds/fewfre
Summary: Some American dumbass finds the ultra-rare photocard of Mark Lee that initiates a bond the likes not even L. Ron Hubbard would understand.Scientology is involved, but not explained. Mark Lee is involved, and confused.





	1. beginning

"Nah, an' y'know I got a special photocard about Mark Lee. Real surprise one there. Excited about it," Patty said in a mock Irish accent, twirling her hair around with her finger. She lay across her bed with her eyes half-lidded.

"Oh yea?" Her friend, Crystal, responded on the other line with the same mock accent. Patty nodded, rolling around on her bed while staring at the photocard. On it was a selfie of a black haired man giving a peace sign in front of a white wall.

"Oh yea. Got it right in me phone case now for the world to see."

"That's excitin'."

"Oh yea, real excitin'."

She looked at her phone screen to see the time, cringing at the hour.

"Well I'm goin' to bed, so goo' night."

"Alrighty, goo' night!" Crystal said. "Thanks for talkin' to me."

"Nah, thank ya for talkin' to me!"

"Night!"

"Night!"

Then, she promptly pulled out a vibrator and wand from her bedside drawer and went to work. 

—————————————-

Inside the practice rooms of SM Entertainment, an idol was facing a dilemma as he rushed to the bathroom and closed the door swiftly behind him. Mark Lee heard footsteps trailing after him, and he closed his eyes and breathed in and out heavily to try to control his breathing.

"Mark-hyung, are you okay?"

He opened his mouth to reassure his best friend and teammate Haechan, who stood outside, that he was fine, but then Mark clamped his mouth shut as he felt a moan escape from his body as his hips jerked. He turned around from the door to throw his forehead onto the wood. He felt his body grow even hotter, like a spring coiling to be soon released, and he threw one hand over his mouth and the other hand over his drawers as the sensation mounted.

"Do you know what happened with him?" He heard Jaemin asked.

"No, I don't." Mark could imagine Haechan shaking his head. Haechan continued to talk but Mark couldn't focus on it from the sensation of his blood rushing downwards.

"Shit, shit, shit, shit," he whispered, trying desperately to think of anything else that would soften his hard-on. Seagulls, baby lions, dead puppies,  _something_.

Despite his fantasies of seagulls and baby lions and puppies playing together on a picnic blanket near the Hangang river, he kept feeling sexual pleasure tingle through his body, from his toes to his fingers, and, in an almost ditch effort to stop himself from cumming, he gripped his nails to his palms as tightly as possible.

To no avail, he still came. He bit his lip hard enough to draw blood as he felt his orgasm wreck his body and make him spasm unexpectedly.

Mark breathed out shakily as he felt the rest of the spasms die down. He quietly deposited himself on the floor, his ragged breathing slowly becoming more audible as the high wore off. He laid his head back on the wooden door and closed his eyes. After he took some deep breaths, he got up to clean himself off, now recognizing the deep red on his cheeks as he looked at the bathroom mirror.

"What the fuck, what the fuck," Mark whispered to himself as he splashed his face with water and cleaned his dick off, then finally fixed his boxers up.

After he dried off, he walked out of the restroom to see the entirety of NCT Dream looking at him. He cleared his throat.

"Let's go back to practice," he said weakly.

The rest of the members, wide-eyed and standing stiff, simply nodded, and followed him back to the practice room.

—————————————-

Patty glanced at her phone screen, watching it light up with a new text notification from her friend Andy. He was asking to meet her tonight for studying chemistry, but she had a feeling they wouldn't get much studying done, so she opted to study for chemistry  _beforehand_  so she could get the dick  _afterwards_.

Above her, the lecture's PowerPoint slide shifted to a new one, and she re-focused on the new information in front of her as she quickly jotted down notes on early science fiction writers like L. Ron Hubbard. At first, she thought her professor was trying to convert her to Scientology—from the way her professor professionally avoided the topic, though, she wasn't entirely sure.

She quickly grabbed her phone to respond to Andy's euphemistic booty call before re-focusing on the professor, who at this point was explaining some of Hubbard's book covers.

"Now I know what you're thinking—why is there a woman standing on a pile of gold with an ethnically ambiguous man standing behind her with a chrome city in the background? Well, let me tell you, science fiction is more of a window into our current reality than we think. You see, if we focus on how Hubbard views wealth—"

Patty started feeling like her suspicions about conversion may have been right.

——————————-

"Fuck, Andy, right there!"

"You like it when I hit it there? Yeah?"

"Fuck yeah I do!"

Andy slammed his hips forward into Patty, sweat dripping from his brow down his naked chest, following a pathway down from his stomach to his dick as it flashed in and out of her pussy. Patty threw her head back to moan louder as Andy's hands gripped her breasts tighter, pinching her nipples slightly. She rocked back onto his dick with a fever pitch that would've made a porn star applaud (in admiration or envy, who knows).

As Andy fucked into her, his breathing grew more erratic, and Patty was soon following his pace to chase her orgasm. She had already cum once but aren't second times better than the first? Andy then hit her sweet spot, making her momentarily forget where she was, who she was, and why L. Ron Hubbard started the Church of Scientology in 1952 after he lost the rights to one of his works  _Dianetics_. Her moan matched his as they came together; a modern miracle.

"Ron," she whispered, suddenly interested in learning more about Scientology.

Andy arched an eyebrow up as he slipped out of her, still breathing heavy. His deep voice scratched as he talked: "Ron a guy you daydream about?"

"He's kinda old and dead so no," she said, panting. She opened her eyes to look up at Andy and grinned. She gave him a thumbs-up. "Great job, by the way."

Andy smiled. "You too."

Then they looked at each other for a long time. Patty felt butterflies grow in her stomach, but she quickly dismissed that bullshit when Andy got up to leave so he could actually study for chemistry. Patty decided she was better off browsing k-pop Twitter.

——————————

Back at the dorms, Mark once again found himself post-orgasm panting on the floor of a bathroom while trying to figure out what the fuck was going on. At least this time there was no Haechan or Jaemin trying to eavesdrop on him. Not that he disliked their care for him, but this kind of...problem...was something he didn't want anyone,  _anyone_  to know about.

He heard his phone vibrate and he sighed heavily, head in his hands. He moved some of his fingers so he could look through them and he sighed again, cursing to himself before picking up his phone.

"Hey, Donna! How are you?"

"I'm good, just wanted to hear your voice..."

He smiled at hearing her and relaxed a bit. As Donna carried on with talking about her day, Mark temporally forgot about his new problem until she asked when he would be free next. He scratched the back of his neck nervously and thumbed through his calendar, thinking.

"I think maybe this Friday night? Would you want to do something then?"

They planned a date for sushi and he hung up with her a few minutes later. He tried not to think about how his new problem could agitate their relationship. He hung his head and got up to clean himself off again, shame, confusion, and the lingering of a powerful orgasm still clinging to him.

He only hoped that it wouldn't happen again while he was with Donna.

—————————————-

Patty was hanging out with Crystal, her college podmate and basically only other friend into k-pop, as they watched NCT Life on her laptop.

"Mark is so fucking cute, bro," Patty said, enraptured by his and his group mates on-screen.

Crystal hummed her agreement and then squealed when there was a close-up of Johnny. She then quickly apologized and Patty laughed, patting her to reassure her that she was fine with it. As the episode played Crystal's reactions became more subdued.

"Hey Patty."

"What's up, mate?" Patty said, her mock accent slipping in again. Crystal pursed her lips.

"How long ya been datin' Andy?"

Patty sputtered, gaze dropping from the laptop screen to look around the room furtively.

"I'm sorry?"

"Well, you're always hooking up with him," Crystal said, voice back to normal. "And you guys are always texting each other. It's kinda obvious you're into him, hun."

"Oh god please no," Patty said. Crystal looked at her to see her holding her hands up. "Andy's cute but he's out of my league. Plus, I think he's more into guys than girls, so..."

"You could still ask him."

"Nah."

"Okay," Crystal said, attention back on-screen.

She refused to look in the direction of Patty until she heard Patty sigh and say, "Alright, maybe I will. Ask him out. Yeah."

"Yay!" She squealed, vibrating excitedly.

Patty blushed while Crystal cooed over her to help her figure out how to talk to him. Patty's four-year Toshiba hummed as the NCT Life episode continued.

—————————-

Patty:

-hey Andy, could I talk to you in person soon?

Andy:

—yeah sure of course!! I get off work at 5 today if you wanna meet up?

Patty:

-yeah, how does the library sound?

Andy:

—that's cool!

Patty:

-thanks. See you then :)

———————————

Patty sat at the picnic table, a copy of  _Dianetics_  in front of her. She looked through it passively as she willed her heartbeat to stop beating so quickly. Damn heart, all it was good for was making her breath and overreact to cute people. Fuck it.

She chanced another glance towards the way she thought Andy was coming down. Still no one. She focused on reading the book's introduction, and then glanced up again to see him walking towards her. He waved and she waved back.

"Andy!"

"Hey Patty!" He took a seat across from her, smiling brightly. He put his hands in front of him to fold on top of the table. "How've you been?"

Patty suddenly couldn't look him in the eye and focused on the support pillars of the library instead. "Oh you know, just doin' me. Yourself? How was work?"

"It was good, yeah. Thanks for askin'."

A beat of silence passed.

"So, did you wanna talk about something?"

Patty looked over at him, surprised by his boldness. His face remained smiling and he still had his hands folded on the table. Before she could speak, he snapped his fingers.

"Wait, hold on, I need to do something," he said, pulling out his phone. He typed something out and smiled softly when he seemed to get a reply.

"Your girlfriend?" Patty asked teasingly, and then instantly regretted asking when she saw Andy rub the back of his neck sheepishly.

"I'm not sure yet, haha," Andy said, smiling softly. "I like her a lot but y'know, she's applying for med school so she's busy."

Patty paused. She had a choice in response: to tell the truth, a lie, or just getting the fuck outta there.

She pushed  _Dianetics_  forward. "Hey bro, your professor ever try to prosthelytize Scientology to you during a lecture and then give you a free copy of  _Dianetics_  afterwards?"

Andy frowned, staring at the book cover. "No? Isn't that like, illegal?"

"Maybe! But let's talk about it anyway!"

———————————————

Mark didn't know what the feeling of a sad orgasm was until it hit him. He was hanging out with the rest of his members during a Vlive when, good fucking lord, he felt that heat start in him again. Thankfully he was sitting behind everyone on the wall, but that also stopped him from having a chance to escape to the bathroom.

"Yeah, I think Taeyong-hyung has the coolest parts," Mark, through the fog of arousal, heard Haechan say next to him. He could practically see his own pose stiffen on the screen of his phone as he watched their broadcast, and he cursed whoever let this problem happen to him.

Haechan seemed to notice Mark's reaction and he looked at him with concern. Mark glanced at him with a reassuring nod because, really, there was shit all he could do. Seagulls. Baby lions. Undead puppies.

As Jaehyun and Taeyoung talked in front of him, Mark felt his dick stiffen again and he barely held back a whine. Wave after wave of arousal, but the usual feeling of delight was lost? Like, he was getting pleasure but felt empty from it? How—

Then, a bullet of arousal streaked through him so hard that his balls tightened sharply enough to sucker-punch him. He covered up his moan with a cough and hand over his mouth but Haechan seemed to notice, his head jerking over to look at Mark in alarm.

Oh my god, fuck off, Haechan, please, Mark tried to communicate with his eyes, but Haechan just tilted his head and furrowed his eyebrows in confusion. Then, the sad orgasm hit, deadass almost throwing Mark to the wall behind him to slam his head against it. The full eye contact he made with Haechan certainly didn't make it better, especially when his friend seemed to finally pick up on what was finally going on and grinned mischievously. Fuck you, Mark mouthed back to him, a hand up to cover his mouth to their camera. Haechan just grinned and sat forward, looking at the camera again. The Vlive continued unabated.

——————————

Patty saw what happened on Twitter after she cleaned up. Her timeline was blowing up with the blurry video of Mark seeming to have some freak-out while Haechan and Doyoung watched on, the former staring in shock at Mark while the latter considered him intermittently across the room as the live went on.

The comments under the video weren't any better:

"What the fuck was going on with Mark"

"Boi just looked like he straight up lost his remaining brain cells"

"y'all the robots are malfunctioning again #NCTspiracy"

"fr mark look like he just had the most with Haechan. Or he orgasmsd?? The fuck"

"omg #Markhyuck #truelove ur favs could never"

Patty scrolled through the rest of the post, checking the comments for answers to Mark's behavior. There were none. She looked at her (now clean) sex toys on her bed and looked back at the timeline of Mark flipping out on Vlive. That was 10 minutes ago. She orgasmed 10 minutes ago. She knew this for a fact because she had an exam at 3 pm and she wanted to be done masturbating at 1:30 pm, which was now.

"No fuckin' way," she whispered.

——————————-

Being MC for a music show was a Big Deal, especially for new idols like Mark Lee. He stood next to Mina as they announced the next group, trying to focus on his lines instead of all the stuff that went down that week; cancelling the date with Donna, having to still deal with  _that_  problem, and avoiding Haechan's unbearable questions. He forced himself to focus instead on his lines. The words flowed easily from him as he hyped up the next group, and after they finished and it went back on camera to them, he almost felt like everything was back to normal.

But, uh, then shit went down again.

He felt the punch of arousal coming and barely held back a groan as it hit full force. He stumbled backward for a second before regaining his balance and re-focusing on the monitor in front of him, reading off his lines. After he finished he excused himself quickly from Mina and the rest of the crew while he ran to the bathroom, hearing protests behind him as he went.

He slammed the door behind him and threw a hand down his pants while another covered his mouth. He pumped his hand around his dick, feeling momentary relief at some semblance of control over his situation. He breathed out airily as the tension in his body lessened as he fucked his hand.

"Fuck," he moaned, clammy hand still covering his mouth.

He closed his eyes and let himself feel, pulses of arousal randomly coming to hit him as he put out pulses of his own. Soon, however, he felt those pulses have a complementary rhythm to his, and he almost choked in surprise. His breathing got more ragged as he felt a pushback from the pulses and he responded back, pushing his hips out to meet his fist. He whined as he felt the beginning tingles of orgasm and prayed that it would come quickly; then, almost as if in a merciful answer, he felt a sudden slam of pleasure hit him that spread through the core of his body to his fingers and toes as he collapsed on the floor, ass hitting the tile. He clenched his eyes in pain as he recovered and quickly took time to control his breathing. He ran a hand through his hair and, when he fully felt his dick soften and he could hear everything around him, he got up to clean himself up and head back to the stage to face whatever consequences there may be.

—————————

"Ay Patty, 'ave ya seen what ya boy Mark 'as been doin'?" Crystal's voice buzzed over the phone. 

Patty stared at her laptop screen in disbelief, ignoring Crystal's voice.

"People are sayin' he's got explosive diarrhea, whatddya think?"

Patty watched as Mark came back to MC with a noticeable sheen of sweat on his face, his hair mussed.

"Patty?" Crystal said, switching to her normal voice. Patty blinked and picked up her phone, turning it off speaker and putting it up to her ear to talk.

"Yea, looks like he was about to shite himself," she responded. "'At sucks."

———————————————

What. What was Patty supposed to do with this information.

She had masturbated while Mark was doing a broadcast as a sly, but random way to see if there actually was a pattern. When she saw him start stumbling as she got closer to cumming, she couldn't believe it, and when she saw him come back out like he had gotten his brains fucked out, she had to believe it. Especially,  _especially_  when she started feeling something else coming back at her as she touched herself. Wacky!

She continued to stare at her laptop as the broadcast went on, her phone laying thoughtlessly next to it. Crystal had hung up earlier to focus on studying.

Was she never supposed to masturbate again? Should she only masturbate when she  _knew_  that Mark wasn't going to be in a live broadcast? Should she just swear off all sex to never put him through spontaneous orgasms?

When did he start doing this? She thought about it for a second. She went on Twitter, Instagram, k-netz fansites. Someone mentioned that Mark had started acting weird around the beginning of the month.

She turned her phone over to look at the photocard in her case. Thought about when she got it.

Maybe...

She held up scissors to the special photocard, thinking. She then looked at her NCT Empathy album, Reality version. She looked at her photocard. The album. Photocard. Album.

She cut up the photocard, and then the album. She tried not to be sad about it. She then took a few deep breaths and then went back to studying for her chemistry final, hoping her quick fix was all that was needed.

——————————

"You seem better," Doyoung remarked as Mark took some food from the shared plate to eat.

They were eating at a restaurant with their managers as a congratulatory meal, all expense paid. Mark looked up at him, curious. "I mean, last week you seemed stressed out. Glad you're feeling better."

Mark swallowed his food. "Thank you, Doyoung-hyung."

He felt Haechan eyeing him across the way, judging. Mark refused to look at him as he grabbed another strip of meat to eat.

"I think I just needed some rest," Mark said in explanation. Doyoung hesitated, but then nodded along with Mark. Yes. Rest. That's all it was.

After their meal, everyone took their cars back to the dorms. Haechan made sure to sit next to Mark, and Mark proceeded to ignore him by going on his phone.

"Are you still avoiding me, Mark-hyung?" Haechan asked, quiet enough for no one but Mark to hear. Mark glanced at him, then went back to his phone.

"I'm not avoiding you," Mark said.

Haechan looked at him. "You haven't looked me in the eye for more than five seconds at a time in the last two weeks."

"Maybe you just got uglier," Mark suggested, earning him a small beating from the younger. Mark quickly apologized mid-beating and Haechan stopped. He looked outside the window to people-watch as their driver drove.

"Donna broke up with me," he said, suddenly but quietly.

Haechan's eyes widened. "Really? When?"

"A few days ago. Said she didn't really 'feel it as much anymore'," Mark said. He felt Haechan wrap an arm around him and give his shoulder a quick squeeze.

"I'm sorry about that, hyung," Haechan said, letting go of his shoulder. "I know you liked her."

"Yeah."

The drive went on in silence until they got back to their dorms, wherein Haechan convinced everyone to make Mark's favorite foods, just for tonight. He needed it.

—————————-

Patty was ass-deep into the penultimate chapter of  _Fortune of Fear_  by the Hubbard himself when she felt a hand slam onto the table in front of her. Unfazed by Crystal's presence and actions, she looked up to see her friend giving her crazy eyes.

"Bitch," she said in greeting.

"Bitch," Patty said back, nodding.

"Bitch."

"I think we already established that."

"I just got invited to meet NCT 127 for a KCON interview."

"Wait, what," Patty said, sitting back, shocked. Crystal smiled smugly at her.

"And I can bring a friend."

"Oh my god, Crystal—"

"And it's you! Bitch!" Crystal screamed with fingers pointed at her. Patty sat back, still comprehending, and then screamed back, jumping up to grab her friend's hands as they danced around their college pod together. Their screaming got so loud that a few students poked their heads out of concern, and then, noticing that it was just them yelling about some convention thing, they slouched back into their rooms to continue studying for finals.

"Crystal I love you forever," Patty said. She felt her whole body vibrating in excitement over the news; she had gotten tickets to KCON on pure luck, but this was beyond luck, this was—

Suddenly, she wondered.

Crystal, celebrating next to her and unbeknownst to her condition, stopped when she saw her friend hesitate. "What? What's wrong?"

"Nothing," Patty lied. Then, seeing her friend's disbelieving face, she continued, "I'm just, I don't know what to do around them. I don't know how to act."

"Just don't be creepy, lol. Just be yourself and nice like always," Crystal reassured her, giving her a thumbs-up. She then took a second to straighten her posture and tap her chin. "Then again, if you don't wanna go..."

For a split second, Patty wanted to say no. There was a small chance of Mark recognizing her through whatever weird bond had been (hopefully) temporarily made through what Patty now considered "the photocard incident", but there was no guarantee.

Looking at the excitement in her friend's eyes and questioning her own paranoia, though, made Patty instead say yes again with a new determination. Crystal and her then jumped around again until one of their pod mates came out to tell them to  _please_  shut the fuck up so they could study.


	2. an issue.

When you're interviewing with artists not from Europe of the US, it's important to keep in mind that you'll probably be restricted in how you can communicate with them, especially if they're from a pop background like k-pop or j-pop. This is what Denise, the current interviewer for boy group NCT 127, has realized over the years of interviewing so many, if not hundreds, of groups.

NCT 127 contained nine members from differing backgrounds but had a concept based in Seoul, South Korea. They came from a popular talent agency called SM Entertainment which was a Big Deal among the higher-ups, and they were also hugely popular with the female youth. She looked over at the girls that were invited to talk to NCT today and wondered how some of them had even made it to the studio, considering how jittery they looked.

"You guys look great," she said to reassure them. Some of the girls, five in total, smiled at her and thanked her, but the others still looked frightened. Denise suddenly wondered what producer thought this was a good idea.

Then, NCT 127 came in the door, and Denise once again was hit with a bit of culture shock at the amount of make-up and petite looks the boys sported. She wondered if any of them were still in high school, since it wasn't atypical for the South Korean artists in k-pop to go to school  _and_  promote with their group at the same time. A man in a light blue button-up cotton shirt approached her to give her a handshake, introducing himself as Taeyoung, the leader of the group.

"And my name is Denise, nice to meet you, too," Denise said with a smile back. She could practically feel the tension exuding from the fans behind her and wondered if she needed to get a paper bag, or seven.

Taeyoung swept his arm over one of his members, introducing them to her from left to right: "This is Taeil, he is the oldest; this is Doyoung; Yuta; Johnny, he speaks more English than me," Taeyoung said, grinning sheepishly at the latter's introduction. Denise reassured him that he was fine and Taeyoung continued, "Winwin; Haechan, and Jaehyun and Mark, who also speak English."

When Denise's gaze landed on the last member, Mark, she flinched a bit at the strong, serious expression that the young-looking boy took as he seemed to glare behind her. Denise briefly followed his gaze to see that he was staring at a petite Hispanic (or South Asian? Middle Eastern? She couldn't tell) girl, who looked absolutely terrified. Denise decided to ignore whatever  _that_  was for now and instead re-centered on Taeyoung to help organize him and his members on the stage for the interview. As soon as the members were seated and she got the go-ahead from one of their managers, who were standing behind their camera person, she went over the format of the interview with them briefly. She barely stopped herself from staring at Mark (that was his name right?) as he continued to gaze at the fan. She could hear the other fans chatting in the background animatedly. The other members also seemed to notice Mark's staring and one of them even elbowed him when he thought Denise wasn't looking. Mark broke his gaze immediately and settled it on her, a cute smile on his face.

"Well, if you're all ready, we can start," Denise said, motioning to the idols and then settling on looking at their managers. The managers gave the thumbs-up, and the cameras started rolling.

—————————————-

Patty was about to throw up. Like, really throw up. The moment 127 came in was the moment she felt the pull of whatever the fuck she'd been feeling in the last month rear its head, intensifying as she felt Mark Lee walk in. Seeing 127 through hi-def fancams was something, but the real thing? Fucking unfathomable. The whole group swooped in like a bunch of gods returning to their thrones, and Patty could feel her heartbeat and blood pressure spike up. She barely noticed Crystal clutching her arm for dear life, her nails digging into her friend's skin.

As the group walked in, Mark made eye contact with her as if on instinct. Patty was sort of hoping that if he did recognize her, he'd play it off or roll with it, but the whole glaring thing was new. For a moment, she couldn't breathe. There was no way he recognized her, no way. But the glaring continued. Right. At. Her.

"Well if you're all ready, we can start." Patty barely registered the journalist start the interview, gaze still deer-in-the-headlights focused on Mark as he finally,  _finally_  shifted his gaze from boring into hers to focus on the interviewer.

She then felt Crystal gripping her arm and she stepped away to dislodge her, face contorting in pain as she sensed the bruise that would no doubt be there tomorrow.

All she had to do here was ask what her sign said for the group:  _What's your favorite meal in America?_  Simple shit, everyone asked it. Anyone could ask it. She looked at Mark again and felt the pull. Damn, she needed water.

"We'll have the first fan come up to ask a question!" Denise asked, gesturing to Crystal. Patty whispered good luck to her as her friend went up. Crystal didn't answer and walked up stiffly. She asked her question, to which all of the members happily replied. Then, Denise motioned for Patty to come forward as Crystal walked unsteadily back, face drawn up but body vibrating in excitement.

Patty focused on the background behind the boys rather than themselves when she began talking. She could definitely feel Mark's gaze boring into her, now. She shivered and stuttered while asking her question.

"I like the hamburgers here," Jaehyun said in English, smiling at her. She mentally slapped herself for not smiling back automatically. She then forced herself to, ignoring the shaking of her hands and the beating of her whole body in nerves.

A few of the others members answered and she desperately tried to commit them to memory, but it was useless. Then, it was Mark's turn.

"I have to say, like, I think that the ice cream here is really good, we don't have a lot of those flavors in Korea," Mark said. His voice traveled clearly to Patty and her steady background streams of  _whatthefuckwhatthefuckwhatthefuck_  only increased in volume. Denise thanked her for her time and she walked away to stand beside Crystal again. The two of them remained silent until the interview finished, and then they were promptly escorted outside with the rest of the fans.

———————————

"What the  _fuck_  was that, Patty?"

Patty was too busy looking at the shit skyline outside their hotel room to answer. She suddenly remembered she bought whiskey and got up to take the bottle out of her bag to chug as she sat down on their bed.

"Patty, seriously! Mark was looking right at you! Like, for real!"

"I know."

"How can you be so calm about this?!"

Patty had uncapped the whiskey and was currently throwing that shit back so she could take down as much as possible. She sputtered a bit after she was done, recovering. She then eyed her friend as Crystal started changing clothes.

"Where are you goin'?"

Crystal was currently putting on her sparkly, special bra. She grabbed her "I'M A BAD KITSCH" t-shirt to put over it and raised an eyebrow at Patty. She pointed a finger at her.

"You. Don't try me. I know you know what's going on."

"I really, really don't," Patty said weakly, feeling her body finally deflate.

Then.

A spark of arousal rushed through her, punching her straight through the gut to her vagina. She curled forward and moaned unabashedly. She heard Crystal freaking out as she rushed to her, and suddenly felt a cold hand get thrown over her forehead. She raised her head up to look at her friend, eyes dilated and breathing erratic.

"What the fuck," Crystal said, entranced. Patty licked her lips, moaning again while her friend watched, taking a step back.

"Patty, what the fuck is going on?"

Patty clenched her stomach tight and willed herself to think of anything non-sexual, like... Andy fucking his probably-girlfriend. Yeah, that really was a boner killer. When she finally got her breathing back to normal, she looked over at Crystal again and sighed heavily.

"I'm sorry man," she said. "I just, I'm not feeling well."

"Yeah," Crystal said, nodding.

"I think... I just need some alone time."

Crystal, bless her heart, was torn between helping her friend and watching her moan and groan super loud. Her choice was obvious.

"Text me if you need anything else," Crystal yelled before she dashed out.

Patty sighed in relief and instantly brought down her pants, then panties down so she could tease her clit. She licked her lips and used her other hand to massage her breast as she started fingering herself on the bed. Another jolt of pleasure rocked through her, making her moan even louder than before.

"Fuck, Mark," she breathed, then slapped a hand over her mouth automatically in shock. Another wave of pleasure stabbed through her and she moaned again, rolling her body to the side as she added another finger in, her pussy wet and welcoming the extra finger. She continued to moan as her touches fed into a feedback loop, coming back to her soft, medium, and hard, alternating each time. She felt herself pant harder and harder as she chased a quick orgasm, eyes screwed shut as she continued. Suddenly, she was feeling a different softness of her sheets, and for a second the fingers pumping inside her were running up a cock instead. She flitted her eyes open to look at the wall across from her apartment, turned on, surprised, and barely conscious. She licked her lips and decided to try something out.

"Mark, you fucking bastard, why are you doing this now," she growled, angling her fingers towards her g-spot so she could moan, hard. She swore she could  _feel_  the wave of pleasure transferring beyond her to someone else, momentarily stopping as she spoke. Excited but tentative, she pressed on. "If you can hear me, try to say something back, or do something hard."

At first, she didn't get a response, the feedback loop being the same as it was before. Then, she felt her hips jerk as a huge wave of pleasure coursed through her body and sent her to orgasm. She screamed out in pleasure and frustration as she came.

"Fuck!"

She stared at the ceiling, face contorted in pain, pleasure, and frustration. She forced herself to breathe normally. The silence of the room around her helped calm her as well as make her realize the gravity of the situation.

"Mark, you bastard," she whispered. "I'm gonna get you back for making me do that in front of Crystal. Fucking pervert."

Of course, she had no way of knowing if Mark knew that she wasn't alone while he was (probably) alone, but whatever. Fuck him. But also fuck him? That was kinda hot. Part of her brain was trying to commit the brief flash of her seeing what was probably his dick to memory but she quickly shut that shit down. Instead, she tried to reason with him:

"Mark, we're both screwed here. If you can hear me, try doing something, anything, to let me know you can hear me."

A beat. Then another. Patty furrowed her eyebrows further in concentration, hoping to catch at least something.

There was nothing.

Patty then posited they could only communicate when masturbating which, well, made conversations more difficult. She could tell how he was feeling but couldn't really have communication with him beyond, "Yeah that feels good but have you felt  _this_?"

Still, she waited a few minutes to see if anything changed. It didn't. She looked over to the bedside table to see her phone blowing up with texts from Crystal, her group chat, and her mom. She picked up the phone to answer them instead of dealing with the problem, again.

————————————-

"Seriously, Mark, what the hell."

Mark was currently eating the food the staff had provided them while they were doing their photo shoot. Johnny stood above him, arms crossed over his chest as he watched the younger scarf down cheese blocks.

"I'm not sure what you're talking about," Mark said, swallowing a block as he picked up a green grape. Johnny sighed in irritation.

"You were glaring at a fan. In front of everyone. It was really obvious."

"Ah, I didn't mean to do that!" Mark looked up at Johnny quickly, innocence in his eyes. "I was just trying to figure out what they were wearing!"

Johnny looked at him.

"I'm serious!"

Johnny opened his mouth to say something when their manager came in and motioned for Mark to follow him. Johnny gave him a small look of sympathy as Mark passed, the other members around them also taking note of their movement. When they were able to get into a more private space, 127's manager looked at him with a raised eyebrow.

Mark crumbled. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to come off that way, manager-nim."

"What happened out there?"

"I was focusing on what one of the fans was wearing too much so it looked like I was glaring," he reiterated. The manager's eyebrow only shot up further.

"You...were so focused on a fan's jewelry that you glared at them for several minutes?"

"Yes, manager-nim."

Their manager continued to stare at them. Mark stared back, sweating profusely. If there were buckets, they would've been filled with it, and he could've poured it into the NYC sewers along with the rest of whatever godawful things went in there. At the moment, though, no buckets appeared, and he was on his own trying to hide it. He pondered melting into a small, idol puddle instead, when his manager nodded.

"Okay. If anyone asks, tell them that you thought you recognized the girl from somewhere but just couldn't figure out where. Then tell a story about your days in school or something."

Mark deflated in relief.

"Thank you, manager-nim," Mark said.

"This will be a headache for us to deal with, so please don't do it again," his manager reminded him. Mark quickly nodded and apologized again. His manager waved him off and Mark went back to the shoot, watching as Johnny had stepped up for a solo shoot before him. Mark deftly avoided Haechan, who was eyeing him from where the food was, by going over to the railings outside to look at downtown New York. He focused on the nice, clear view of Central Park. Wondered if the girl was there. Wondered if she had felt what he'd done almost immediately after the interview. How she had felt about it—hopefully as bad as he felt after what she pulled during his lives.

His hands tightened on the railings as he thought about that. Damn, he wish he could've talked to her a bit to figure out why she was doing this to him. It didn't make sense for one of his fans to be this reckless and cruel. It made his stomach churn.

Then again, at the interview she looked just as scared as he felt angry. If she really felt no remorse, why would she agree to go to an interview and meet him and break the anonymity? To fuck with him? That part didn't make sense. Then again, nothing did.

He felt a warm presence come beside him and he startled, looking to his left to see Johnny standing next to him.

"That was fast," Mark remarked.

"They don't have a lot more time with us," Johnny said, shrugging. He looked over from the skyline to Mark. "They want you up next. You ready for it?"

Mark felt like puffing up his chest but refrained. He nodded instead, going away from the railing to where the stylists were for last minute touch-ups.

——————————————-

At the flurry of KCON, Patty had low-key hoped to see Mark Lee randomly appear, but of course that didn't happen. Instead she found herself wandering around from panel to panel dropping her wallet on NCT and other group merch. When performances were close to beginning, she started feeling sick to her stomach.

"Yo, Patty, you look like you're about to die," Crystal noted, her arms full of albums, clothes, and posters. "That's out of excitement, right?"

They still hadn't talked about the incident. Well, they had talked about it, but more as a "dude I don't want to fuck you/oh thank god, not to say you're ugly, but I can only see you as my friend" kind of way. Beyond that, the conversation had stilted and they had been kinda quiet until KCON rolled around.

Crystal knew it involved Mark, but she wasn't really sure how. Patty wanted to keep it that way.

Not like she didn't trust her friend! It's just, what could Crystal possibly offer? This kind of shit was paranormal and Crystal was more agnostic than mystical, she wouldn't know anything about that. Not only that, but she was pretty sure Crystal would treat her differently if she found out that her friend had the power to give Mark Lee orgasms.

Apparently that power ran both ways, too, though. This hadn't been the first time that Mark had thrown Patty into a mood of fuck the pillow, but it seemed like it was the first time it had been done intentionally, which, screw him? Not really. But also, didn't that count as sex?

"I'm good," Patty reassured her friend with a quick smile and thumbs-up. Crystal hummed and raced to another merch table for last minute purchases.

Patty focused on the KCON line-up, reading NCT 127 as one of the headliners, thinking of how Mark Lee now was using his power to intentionally fuck with her pissed her off. She had already had one guy almost take advantage of her—she had thrown her  _Dianetics_  book tearfully away when she realized she couldn't travel to California—and she wasn't about to let another guy do the same.

Maybe it was a bad idea. Or, maybe it was stupid, and hilarious, and totally worth the consequences because it would be hilarious.

When she saw Crystal come back with yet another poster of Johnny and Red Velvet's Seulgi, she knew what she must do.

————————————-

Like most women, Patty had never experimented much with butt stuff. The first time she had encountered anything with it was with her first boyfriend who was using a furry butt plug on  _his_  boyfriend while they had a threesome.

It sounded hot but really, it was just a mess of hormones and tongues going places in uncoordinated fashions. Patty had left horny and unsatisfied, but her brief period with the toy inside her made her realize that sometimes, the best things in life did go in your ass.

Later on, of course, she would be sticking that in her partners, but she always took the time for solo or public play when she felt in the mood for it. When life gives you money, you make Amazon purchases for remote control butt plugs that break down easily and make you buy new ones until you toughen up and a buy an expensive one so that it'll last longer.

As she started inserting said expensive plug inside of her inside their hotel bathroom with lube almost dripping from her fingers and the pristine marble counter jutting into her thigh as she balanced, she thought about God. What would God say about this? The initial breach into her asshole by the toy made Patty breathe out suddenly, caught. Then, she kept pushing forward. Maybe God would applaud her for trying new avenues and being bold about it. Maybe God would thank her for being so kind to k-pop idol Mark Lee as he performed. Maybe, she'd get a holy medal for it, one with doves and angels and shit printed on the faces and heavy enough to be a coaster but not heavy enough for a true weapon.

She picked up her phone to turn on the app. She dialed it to its first function and immediately fell forward, barely able to brace herself on the top of the commode as the toy vibrated inside her.

"I hope this feels good, Mark," she said, voice already deep and breathy, "because I'm about to make it even better."

————————————-

At exactly 9:35 pm EST on k-pop Twitter, something was going on:

"Did everyone else see what I just saw"

"oh my god"

"HE JUST WODJJAISHAGAH HAHAHAHA HOLY SHUT HAYE FCKIBG SHYT"

"everyone keeps talking about mark and kcon and I don't get why. anyone can fill me in?"

—"apparently mark pulled off some thot dance moves and looked like he was about to bust a nut on stage"

——-"IM SORRY WHAT"

——-"HAHAHAHHAHA"

——-"do you have any proof of this?? not that I don't believe you, would just be nice for a video"

———-"sure lol" ——> [video attached]

—————-"......"

—————-"I TOLD YALL HE A FREAK"

———————-"WE BEEN KNEW"

—————-"baby why ;-; "

"KCON is such a trip lol"

————————————

There was a sense of accomplishment and glory that Patty had never felt before as she moved her way through the pit to the front of the stage, watching as NCT 127 started Whiplash and she turned on the app to turn on the dial for the toy. As the familiar vibration made her squirm lightly, she watched its effect on Mark's face as he danced across the stage and began rapping. She noticed his eye twitch and scan the crowd hurriedly. She grinned and pulled the dial up a notch, willing herself to focus on the group in front of her as their synchronized dance became noticeably less in-synch as Mark began to take on a different style of his own. Patty arched her eyebrow curiously.

At first, Mark had tried to play it off, but as Patty had started playing with the dial, he seemed to adjust to it, using the new bout of sexual pleasure to propel his performance forward; his eyes were more hooded, his lips bitten more, his hands smoothing shakily over his body as he completed and morphed the choreography to be more sexualized than before. Patty just stood there, entranced by his performance and endurance, and turned the dial up another notch. She broke a bit as she stumbled forward but no one seemed to notice, not even Crystal, and screams of excitement deafened her ears as they rose up in support of the group's performance.

Mark didn't even trip over his vocals. Instead, he body rolled into next week, and Patty suddenly wished that she could become next week so he could roll into her. Oh, bad thought. Talentless. She knocked it up another notch. Tasteless. Mark seemed to groan as he positioned himself back into the group, but otherwise synchronized normally. Patty was about to throw it to full blast when she felt a sudden hit of shame over what she was doing and stopped herself, closing out of the app and quickly trying to calm herself down. She saw Mark visibly relax and scan the crowd again, eyes even more focused than before.

The shame she felt was quickly replaced by shock as she saw him finally make eye contact with her and hold it, breath coming out fast as his eyes narrowed. She gulped and pulled out the app again, bringing it to a high notch to watch his eyes alight in recognition as both of them got hit with an unmeasurable amount of pleasure. Around her, no one seemed to notice, since they either thought Mark was looking at them or just in their broad direction. Patty knew, though. She could feel it. She could  _feel_  Mark hitch his breath as she licked her lips. Mark's eyes followed where her tongue disappeared into her mouth. Patty, emboldened with one last ounce of courage, flipped him the bird.

"That was so fucking hot yes!" Patty heard Crystal scream next to her, breaking her out of her staring contest with Mark. By the time she looked back to the stage, Taeyoung, Jaehyun and Mark were walking away, raucous cheers behind them as they went. Patty closed out of the app again without looking and turned to Crystal, yelling to her that she needed to call her mom back, it was an emergency, and heading out. Crystal's confused "what?" became background noise as Patty moved slowly through the crowd to the exit. She went ahead and texted Crystal what she said again anyway, just in case. Patty then walked through the mostly empty convention halls to the bathroom.

Once inside, she pulled the toy out and cried in relief. It felt good for a bit, but edging herself on for so long stopped feeling comfortable when it was constantly present after a few hours. She considered finishing herself off but dismissed that in favor of washing the toy in the handicap bathroom (she'd wash it more thoroughly later). As she waited for the water to warm, her mind buzzed with non-specific thoughts. She had been on auto-pilot since the concert started and she wasn't sure where to go from here. She'd done the unthinkable and Mark had beat her to it. She looked up at the mirror at her appearance and huffed at how disheveled she looked. The water was now warm.

When she finished cleaning the plug, she dried it off with some paper towels and put it in her bag. Then, she walked out of the bathroom back into the hall again. She stared at the posters above her advertising the various groups, her eyes settled on 127.

What was Mark thinking?

Patty had constantly been wondering that since she realized he could feel things. She assumed they were on the same page considering how they were both trying to piss the other off now, but what had it been like before? Had he been scared like her? Eventually intrigued?

Her thoughts ran short as another person walked out of the room into the hall, making eye contact with her awkwardly as they walked to the other side into a nearby bathroom. Another fan.

Part of her knew that she herself was just a fan, but now, she was something else. Whether that something was still a fan more or less she couldn't figure out. She still participated in fandom and called herself a fan, but now she felt a strange personal connection to someone she always saw as an artist to idolize. Did that mean they were still an idol to her, or something else?

Patty decided she needed a drink and took the whiskey bottle outside of the pot of the fake plant she hid it in, drinking it down as she stopped thinking. She went to sit down next to the fake plant and listen to the hard thump of the music inside the convention, feeling a return of the cold from the hall come around her. She licked her lips again as she replayed the scene in her head. Bright lights, sharp dance, heavy voice, heavy eyes filled with anger and pleasure...she took another swig.

The person from before stepped out of the bathroom into the hall, looked around and, not seeing Patty lying on the floor drinking, walked back into the craziness of the concert. Patty watched them walk back in with light interest. She should probably go back in soon. She checked her phone to see if she had any messages and saw none.

Finally, after a few more drinks and taking the time to scroll through Facebook, she felt motivated to go back into the concert. She put her whiskey back into the pot and stumbled back inside to the storming beats.

——————————————-

As Patty and Crystal walked out of the stadium, exhausted out of their minds and barely able to stay awake enough to go in the right direction towards the trains, Patty overheard conversations. They were bits and pieces, but apparently everyone had noticed Mark's dancing and how much more charged it was then Taeyoung's and Jaehyun's. Crystal had said nothing.

"What did you think?" Patty said, watching her friend tilt her head onto Patty's shoulder to sleep as they sat on their seats on the train. Crystal's nose twitched.

"You did that, didn't you."

Patty froze, her body turning cold. Crystal said nothing and waited.

"Yeah," Patty admitted, watching the dark concrete of the subway pass by outside the window as the train zipped past. "I did."

———————————————

Social media stayed blowing up the next day. And the next. It stayed like that until the non-127 members dropped videos of them playing games, and then it blew up again after that hype finished. No one could believe that Mark would dance like that with that kind of sensuality. No one would be able to find out why his dancing was so markedly different than the others.

Thankfully for Mark, the 127 members thought it was a passion for performance rather than an abrupt change that made him dance like that, so he didn't need to try to justify it to them. Unhelpfully, however, everyone teased him for it mercilessly. That went away when Mark would get so red-faced that Haechan would compare his face to a tomato using his phone screen. Even his manager-nims got sucked into the teasing and Mark found himself trying to get away from it more than joking around with them about it.

He had to dance like that to deal with the situation at hand. He hadn't expected that girl to do that to him during a live performance while she was there. It had been a nightmare when he had stepped on-stage and felt the bond, and then a double-nightmare when he realized she was still playing with the plug. He had handled it well, he thought, to the point where he thought he beat her at her game; considering the middle finger she threw his way after he failed to react to her ratcheting up, he thought he had won. Of course, though, in the end he had gone to bed harder than he'd ever been, too freaked out to do anything about it until he could think of a counter-attack. The problem, of course, was that he didn't know where she was, who she was, and how long she'd be in New York.

Then again...

"You wanna know the names of the fans from that interview?" His manager said, surprise on their face as they looked up from texting on their phone.

Mark nodded, explaining that he wanted to actually see if he had known the girl from somewhere by getting her name. His manager looked at him suspiciously and for a moment Mark felt caught and panicked until they sent a message to the journalist to them the fans' names. Ten minutes later after the group started packing their things to go to lunch, his manager got back to him with the names of everyone, including the girl.

"Patricia Gautier-Morales," Mark repeated.

"So, do you know her?"

Mark stared for a second, then blinked, frowning. "No, I don't think so. Thank you for checking, manager-nim."

"You're welcome." The manager went back to texting, and Mark went back to packing his things for lunch.

He ran her name on Facebook and came across a profile that looked similar, if not a bit different since her hair seemed shorter, then. He looked through her profile to see that she lived in Pennsylvania, went to the University of Pennsylvania, was interested in men and women, and that she majored in communication. A pop-up from Facebook asking him to sign-in appeared and he quickly closed out of Safari, putting his phone in his pocket as he got the rest of his things together.

——————————————-

Setting up a fake email to get a fake Facebook and talk to a real fan really had some moral quandaries, but Mark was tired and wanted answers. So he made his email——and used it to make his fake Facebook profile—Boo Boo Lee—and then messaged Patricia's profile. He sat back, admiring his work as he waited for her response in his hotel bed.

Boo:

"hello this is Mark Lee from NCT! Is this Patrícia Gautier-Morales?"

He watched his phone, silent. Nerves on end. He looked out the window to see the blazing NYC sun shine down on unsuspecting citizens and tourists, no doubt burning the tourists who forgot to put on sunscreen. His hand vibrated and his eyes snapped to the phone screen. It was a message response from Patricia!

Patricia:

"Oh wtf is up bro how's it goin bro"

Mark furrowed his eyebrows, confused. She was a lot more...well,  _more_  than he thought. That, or whoever this was was messing with him for shits and giggles. His frown deepened.

Boo:

"Hey can we talk??"

Patricia:

"Lol where"

Boo:

"Near Central Park?"

A pause as Patricia stopped responding, the gray bubble indicating she was typing disappeared. Mark stared at the screen for a while, waiting for her response, and after waiting a few minutes he locked his phone and got up to work on some of the solo projects he was doing.

As he was finally putting pen to paper to jot down lines, his phone buzzed again. He held back an exasperated sigh from the response:

Patricia:

"you know how big central prkbis right"

Mark threw his hand into his hair to comb it back, huffing out in frustration as he typed back.

Boo:

"I've been to New York before so yes haha  
How about near the museum of art?"

Once again, the gray bubble disappeared and Mark walked off to work on his projects before. His knee jostled as he wrote, face taut in stress as he tried to concentrate on his work and stave off frustration at his situation at the same time. Eventually, he failed at both and sat back, huffing in frustration; the rest of 127 and their managers had gone to work on another interview and photoshoot, Mark staying behind after he told them that he felt too sick to go out. He didn't like lying to his members or management--he almost tripped up while he was talking with them--but he wanted to deal with this before he went back to Korea tomorrow.

His phone buzzed. He glanced over, tired, defeated, but still motivated.

Patricia:

"sure br0. See ya in 15!"

Mark blinked, but acquiesced, grabbing his wallet as he walked out to travel to Central Park.

———————————————

The bright, unforgiving sunshine of a NYC summer day blinded Mark as he furtively looked around for the girl as he sat in the corner of the Museum's steps. He narrowed his eyes at each person passing, ignoring families and groups as he studied each person standing individually.

A part of him worried that Patricia would bring other people with her. He realized he should've told her to come alone, but it was too late now. If he recognized her with a group he decided he would just stay hidden and try to deal with it by himself.

Thinking that, he felt the pulse of the bond again and he looked around, then recognized Patricia as she was walking with a family from across the street. He glanced around her and nearby her to make sure that no one else seemed to be watching her, or looking for him. Considering the huge amount of people either yelling for people to come to them, take pictures of the museum, or just sitting around eating cheap street food, he rationalized that no one else was with her.

He watched her walk around the museum for a bit, phone in her hand as she typed. He felt his phone buzz in his pocket. He saw her look up to search for him, then put her head down as she went back on her phone again. Mark watched her walk around for a bit more then, after breathing deeply to calm his nerves, he stood up from his hiding place to approach her. Her head stayed down as he walked up to her and he put his work smile on.

"Hey!" He said, standing a few feet beside her as he waved. "You're Patricia, right?"

Patricia froze where she was, eyes bugging out. Mark kept his smile fixed. She looked up at him slowly, and Mark held out his hand for a handshake to introduce himself—

"Holy shit," she whispered, ignoring his handshake. Mark kept his hand hanging for an awkward moment before letting it drop back to his side. He kept smiling. "Oh shit."

"Thanks for coming, I appreciate it. Can we go to talk somewhere more private? I think there's a Starbucks or something close by," he rattled off, recalling what he had practiced in his head. He internally fist-pumped at how well he was doing as the girl stared at him, shell-shocked.

Around them, no one seemed to pay any mind as a k-pop idol met their fan outside the Metropolitan Museum of Art to confront her about their weird sex bond thing. People were milling about as if Mark was just another guy. Which. He was. But. He was more used to  _somebody_  recognizing him, really.

Patricia shoved a book at him. Mark looked down at the book cover and saw a blonde lady standing on top of a gold pile with an ethnically ambiguous man standing behind her with a chrome futuristic city in the background. Distracted by the sheer brilliance of the book cover, he failed to notice her shouting, "suck my dick Mark Lee!" as she effectively ran away from him towards Madison Avenue.

Mark dashed after her on instinct, his adrenaline pumping as he dropped the book. He yelled after her as he crossed the street (looking both ways first, of course) and chased her to Madison Avenue, where she turned right to continue towards Grand Central Station.

"Stop!" He hollered. She did not stop! "Please, I just want to talk!"

At that, Patricia seemed to hesitate, slowing down from bouncing around people and stopping to stare at him. He looked up to see she stopped at a Starbucks and he put his work smile back on.

"Thank you," He said. "Now can we go in and talk?"

Patricia looked at him, fear in her eyes as she made eye contact with him. He kept smiling and motioned for them to go inside, and after another second of hesitation she finally followed after him into the building.

They walked to stand awkwardly in line for coffee. Mark decided to put his hands in front of him, playing with his jacket cuffs as Patricia stood next to him as far as could be possible in a coffee line without losing her place.

He stared at the menu above the cashiers as he talked, "Um..."

Patricia didn't answer. Mark felt his cheeks continue to flush and he suppressed a groan.

"I appreciate you talking with me today," he said again. Patricia stood stock still, not responding.

Then, she replied, "You dropped  _Fortune of Fear_."

"What?"

"The book I gave you. You dropped it."

"Oh. Sorry."

"What did you think of the cover?"

Mark narrowed his eyes, confused. Patricia made eye contact with him again, her face completely serious.

"Did you laugh when you saw the cover?" She asked.

Mark stuttered, "I-I didn't get a good look of it so..."

"Oh," she said, turning her head around. They kept moving up the line. Mark decided he would get an iced Americano, two sugars, no cream. He glanced over at Patricia and decided he also wanted an espresso shot.

"You interested in Scientology?"

"I'm sorry?" He said, looking over at her again. She sputtered.

"Fuck, never mind, I'm sorry." She pointedly ignored the angry look an older woman in front of them threw her way. "I didn't realize any of this would happen. I'm sorry."

Finally they were getting somewhere. Mark relaxed, putting his hands in his pockets. He sighed. 

"I want to believe you, but I don't know," he said. "You have to understand where I'm coming from..."

He trailed off, and the cashier called them over. They ordered their drinks and stood awkwardly by the counter next to other strangers as they waited for their drinks. Mark glanced at Patricia, who was busy looking off in the distance, expression blank. He thought he heard people whispering behind him and remembered that if anyone else recognized him here, his managers could find out that he snuck out. He felt his body grow more tense and quickly grabbed their drinks when they were slid onto the counter, finished, and hastily gave Patricia's hers while moving outside. He looked around after he left the store to see if there was a place they could sit, moving forward to a building across the street with a courtyard in front. He made sure Patricia was behind him, nodding towards her as they walked across together and sat on some granite steps.

When they sat down, he took a sip of his drink and thought about the calories. Patricia followed his lead beside him, silent.

"So," he started. "Why did you run away from me?"

Patricia kept drinking, staring at the traffic in front of him.

"You're Mark Lee, you know, how could I not," she said. Mark frowned.

"That...I'm confused."

"I tore up the photocard I got of you from the Empathy album just in case it would reverse things and it didn't work," she continued, unbothered. "Fucking shit that was."

"What does my photocard have to do with anything?" He turned toward her suddenly. "Wait, do you think that's how it started?"

She sipped on her drink loudly. "I'm not a scientist rocket, but yeah."

"It's rocket scientist, actually."

"Mark, oh my god," she said, raising her eyebrows at him. He watched her in surprise until they made eye contact and she looked away again. Her mouth was set firmly, her drink resting on the step.

She folded her hands in her lap. She said, "I've been trying to think of how to deal with it since I figured it out. Since we both probably won't go super celibate, I figured one possible solution would be to text each other if we wanted to do something."

She nodded to herself as if complimenting her intelligence. Mark ignored it as he processed what she was saying—their bond was paranormal, she's been trying to figure out a solution, and couldn't they just text each other to let the other know they wanted to fuck?

"I don't know about that idea," he said, cheeks flushing more as he spoke. "There has to be another way, if you give me a second to think."

"Okay," she said, shrugging. She waited while Mark sat back, thinking hard as he drank. Suddenly, he clapped his hands, pumping his fist in the air.

"I've got it!" He turned to her. "Until either of us can figure out how to fix this, how about we space out times of day to do anything, so that way we'll always know what times to avoid doing anything public?"

Patricia stared at him, eyes wide, spellbound. She looked like she wanted to say something, and then closed her mouth. She opened it again. Closed. Her fishy movements amused Mark and he almost laughed, if not for the fact that he could swear he saw someone taking a picture of him. He got up and motioned for them to move. Patricia followed him, throwing her cup in the trash without a second thought even though she didn't finish it. She stood next the trash can, mouth still opening and closing.

Mark looked around again to see if the person was still taking pictures—it looked like a teenage girl, which was already pretty suspicious. He saw her walk away to a group of people that was supposedly her family. Still spooked, he cursed internally and nodded at Patricia.

"I think that idea will work best, but I have to leave for my schedule, sorry," he said, already moving to leave. Patricia just watched him with the same expression as before, as if caught in a still-life painting.

"If you need to talk to me about anything, let me know."

Then, he walked away, and Patricia watched him call for a taxi and drive off. 


	3. escalation!

Crystal watched Patricia as Patricia watched her phone.

"So, Mark agreed to do mutual masturbation with you, huh?"

Patricia just stared at her phone screen.

"And now you guys are setting up the times to do it like it's a business meeting?"

Patricia jolted when she got an answer, and responded back instantly, her fingers hitting the screen at a breakneck pace.

"Part of me feels bad for you, Patty, but the rest of me is just, like..."

Patty looked up at her. Expression blank. Crystal nodded.

"Yeah, like that."

"I think my brain stopped processing yesterday," Patty finally said. Her face turned down in worry, her hands began trembling. "My comprehension skills are now the level of a second grader's."

"What's two plus two?"

"No."

Patty's phone lit up again, and she instantly went back to answering it. After she finished her message she put her head in her hands.

Before encountering Patty and understanding The Situation, Crystal had taken the day to visit her cousins in New Jersey to catch-up. When she saw them she talked to them about the concert and how much fun it was, and her cousins nodded along politely as they watched her spazz for a bit. Her and her cousins then started drinking and Crystal came back to their hotel with a little bit of the liquor left in her, mind still fresh on a debate she had with her cousin over whether Riverdale was the  _best_  worst show in the world, or just the worst.

Now, looking at her friend as she had the biggest moral dilemma in her life, she sobered up.

"What's he saying?"

Patty sighed heavily, shifting her head to be supported by one hand while the other hand drew circles on top of their bedding.

"He's saying that we can do early afternoons my time, late evenings his time," she said. "Every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday."

"Cool. Sounds like you got it all figured out."

"But I don't!" Patty threw her hands up in exasperation, letting out a screech as the last month of stress finally came over her. "I don't have it figured out Crystal! I don't know how to feel! Am I supposed to be excited that someone I'm attracted to is now in a sex bond with me? Should I feel guilty because he has to give up even more of his private life? Should I just accept what's happening and go with it? Because I can't, Crystal, I just can't."

"You said you tried to sever the bond before, right?" Crystal interrupted, trying to focus her friend away from her panic.

Patty blinked, stopping. She straightened her back, her actions less frenzied than before as she calmed down. "Yes."

"What did you do? Did it work?" Crystal pressed.

"I cut up the special photocard and album thinking that's what started the bond, so that would end it," Patty said. "But then the sex thing kept happening so it didn't work, no."

Patty's phone lit up again and Crystal and Patty laser-focused their eyes on the screen. Patty picked it up and started messaging again, her attention on her phone. Crystal bit her lip.

"Does he have any idea of what to do?"

"That's another thing we're talking about," Patty said, eyes still on her phone as she typed, "He said he'd go out and find some healer but I'm not sure how well that'd work."

"It's worth trying."

"I guess," Patty said, worrying her bottom lip. She put her phone down and looked Crystal in the eye. Crystal released her lip and raised an eyebrow at her.

"I'm sorry I didn't tell you earlier. I didn't really know how," Patty said.

Crystal guffawed and waved it off dismissively. "Please, I would not expect you to even tell me about any of this. I'm glad you trust me enough to tell me about it at all."

"Of course," Patty said, smiling. Crystal smiled back. Crystal leaned forward and grabbed Patty's hands in hers, shaking them together.

"You're gonna be cool, Patty, be cool," she said. "Don't let your thetans get to you."

Patty froze for a second, taking in what she said. Then, she started laughing, holding her stomach. Crystal followed after her and graciously fell off the bed on her ass.

"Thetans! I don't even know what that is!"

————————————

Patty looked at her arrangement of alcohol on her shelf, studying it seriously as she wondered which one would be appropriate. The morning sun shone through her cheap dorm curtains toward the bottles, illuminating them beautifully against the cheap cream-colored wall plaster. Patty grabbed the Don Q's and pulled out a shot glass, taking three down in ten minutes. She felt gratitude that her roommate had morning and afternoon classes today so she wouldn't be here. She considered her roommate's bed as she waited for the alcohol to settle in her stomach.

Patty, feeling the rush after a few minutes, stumbled over to her clothing drawer to peek at her sex toys. She considered taking out the cat tail butt plug, but decided that she'd rather use Scorn, her Bad Dragon dildo, instead, just to be classy. Her WiFi enabled butt plug had been tossed out right after Patty realized it wouldn't turn back on after the concert.

Patty studied Scorn, appreciating its girth, color palette, and feel. She imagined one day she'd meet someone with a dick like Scorn that she could love, but in her heart she felt it was impossible. Though, considering what she was doing in the next few minutes, is anything impossible when you're mutually masturbating with a k-pop idol through a sex bond?

Her phone lit up on her dresser and she jumped, almost dropping her most prized dildo. She saw that it was a group chat message and she quickly muted it, her heartbeat picking up as she began absorbing what would happen soon.

Generally, Patty didn't get performance anxiety. She wasn't entirely confident about her body, but she was confident about her technique. However, anything new with somebody, sexual or not, could always be stressful. She hoped that she wouldn't disappoint Mark or make him uncomfortable. Well, that latter part would happen anyway, but she didn't want to  _sustain_  it during. She had been in that kind of situation and it really, really sucked. Her mind wondered again to her last awkward fling, her surroundings fading into the background as she took a vivid trip down memory lane.

Her thoughts continued to ricochet even as the first bout of sexual pleasure hit her. She clamored to grip her dresser as she felt her body begin to heat up, and she glanced at her phone as if it were a conduit to Mark. Another hit, and she moaned.

"Alright..." she whispered, moving over with her toy over to lay down on her bed. The knots in her stomach began to subside as her brain began to focus more on the pleasure in her body.

Feeling that her pussy was already wet, she eased the toy into her and licked her lips, closing her eyes at the feeling of fullness taking over her. She breathed out shakily as her other hand snaked down to her clit so she could massage it, her mouth falling open in a deep moan. As her hands moved, one touching her clit, the other slowly bringing the dildo in and out of place, she felt returning waves of pleasure hit her. She moaned loudly as she felt pleasure from her own ministrations and Mark's movement, her drunken brain neglecting to differentiate them as she rocked onto the dildo. As her eyes shifted from shut to open, she felt her vision change from looking at her dorm ceiling to a nicer, white ceiling with darkness surrounding her. She quickly put it to the bond making her experience what Mark must have been seeing; rather than freak out about that, though, she decided that she wanted to see more.

She grabbed her phone, stopping her massage to type out a message to him with shaky hands:

Patricia:

\--turn on your light so i can see you

She held her phone up to her face, mind still focused on the mutual feeling of giving and receiving pleasure. In her state she didn't think of how this was crossing boundaries; to her, it had become about getting off. She licked her lips in anticipation as she saw the gray bubble appear. Then, it disappeared. Patty closed her eyes and saw her scenery change to the nicer place again, this time with the lights on. She sighed happily, bringing her (their?) body up to stare at her (their?) dick as a hand went over it furiously, squeezing the base and playing with the slit. Patty threw her head back from the image, arching onto her bed as she drove the dildo deeper inside of her. She grappled for her phone that fell down earlier and typed another message:

Patricia:

\--Go faster please

Almost automatically she felt the waves of pleasure change their pace, building up much more quickly than before and almost riding her over the edge. She bit her lip, hard. She opened one closed eye to see that Mark was trying to write a message and she huffed in frustration, hitting the phone button to call him instead. She watched the screen go black and she tapped on the speaker button, waiting to her Mark's voice. Desperate, she dropped the phone on her stomach so she could add a finger with the dildo to scissor inside her.

"Mark," she huffed out after hearing the ringing stop and white noise begin. "Say something."

She heard Mark speak, but it was in Korean. She was about to tell him when he spoke again:

"I thought—I thought we were just gonna do this on our own."

Patty angled her finger a certain way that made both of them cry out, stopping her from responding. She was sweating from her thighs to her back now, body gyrating onto the toy.

"Thought it might be nice to hear my voice," she said. "Don't you want to hear me shout your name when I come?"

"Fuck," Mark said, his curses becoming whispers as they continued their mutual touching.

"Well?"

"I can't say I'm against that. Fuck, I'm close."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah—yeah just." Patty could  _feel_  Mark licking his lips. "Can you do that again? That thing with your finger?"

"What? You mean this?" Patty scissored her finger inside her again and held back a groan to hear Mark's instead. She grinned.

"You like that?"

"Yeah," Mark breathed, and Patty felt his pace quicken again.

"I'll do it again," she promised, going back to her newfound technique. Both her and Mark continued to amp one another up, time passing much more quickly as they fed each other directions through the phone.

Patty started feeling a coiling in her stomach and she began whining, thrusting her body more fervently as her eyes switched from opening to closing. In front of her, she changed from being in her dorm to being in Mark's bed, both of the scenarios seeming to mix together as she signaled with Mark how close she was.

"Come for me, baby," she heard Mark whisper unexpectedly to her through the speaker. Her eyes opened instantly and she cried out, the pleasure spiking through her body as she felt waves of an orgasm run through her. Vaguely she heard Mark make similar noises, and she could vaguely feel his hand catch some of his cum in his hands. In a last ditch effort, she begged to taste him, and he ran his tongue up his hand so she could taste the sweetness of his cum. She heard Mark moan quietly as she brought her own finger up to her mouth to lick, massaging her breast as she came down from her high.

It took a few minutes for Patty to calm down, the room spinning around her as her drunk mind started sobering up. She brought her flimsy hand to her dresser to drink her bottle of water. She felt Mark breathing heavily on his side of the phone. After she finished her drink she threw it across the room to nail it straight into her wastebasket. She almost pumped her fist in triumph but found she was too tired, just staring at the wastebasket instead.

She heard Mark clear his throat.

"Well," he began, "that was—"

Patty slammed her finger on the hang up button before he could finish.

———————————

Mark stared at the phone screen, now just showing his Facebook Messenger conversations. He stared at it for a bit before running a hand through his hair, closing his jaw, which had apparently been hanging down before. The picture of the girl now burned into his mind as he stared at her profile picture. Next to it, her profile said that she was still active.

Mark started texting on his keyboard to her, but stopped. He worried his lip. Started typing out a message again. Stopped.

Around him, the faint light of the room was making him tired, as well as the stress of the day and his past hour of, um, activities. He had already cleaned himself up and was about to get ready for bed, but he felt he needed to say something to Patricia to address what just happened. He wanted to follow his usual process of damage control so the situation couldn't get worse. As he felt his eyes begin to drop, though, and the screen in front of him didn't change, he opted instead to just get ready for bed. He got up, stumbling for a bit as the blood in his body evenly distributed again, and headed for the bathroom, turning off the lights as he left so that only his phone screen lit up the room.

The screen remained unchanged long after he left.

—————————————

Patty burst into her English professor Dr. Thompson's room like her life depended on it, throwing the door open and leaning on it for support while she took time to catch her breath. Dr. Thompson watched her from his side of the room, his book "Scientology: the Fundamentals of Thought" cradled delicately in his hand as he put it down to look at her. She looked at him, wide-eyed before coming to sit down in the chair facing his desk.

Dr. Thompson waited for her to speak. Patty was generally a pretty quiet person in class, but then again, she was also constantly on her phone presumably texting other people, so he figured that she was more talkative in non-public situations.

"I got questions about Scientology, sir," she said.

Dr. Thompson's thoughts were then filled with fist pumps for being right about her nature and  _Oh yeah! Hell yeah!_  Then, he regained his initial calm and considered how to approach the possible new member. He put his book down all the way, resting it on top of his other books. He folded his hands in front of him on his mahogany desk.

"I'm glad to hear you're more interested in the texts we've been going over in class," he responded. Patty nodded.

"Yeah, I'm pretty sure you're still trying to convert us to be the wacky-science version of Christians, but this is the last religion I have left after looking through the others to answer my problem."

Dr. Thompson deftly ignored the incriminating and rude comment towards his lifestyle and nodded, still ready to hear this rude, rude girl out.

Patty nodded back and continued, "This is gonna sound crazy, so when I say it don't call the Counseling Center, okay?"

He frowned, leaning back in his chair and crossing his arms. "Patty, you know if this about abuse or mental health issues, Scientology can still provide answers for it, but as your professor I have to refer you to counseling first."

"It's not that, don't worry!" Patty reassured him, moving forward and putting her hands up. She sighed, putting her head down before continuing. "The truth is, I have a weird...bond with someone I've never met, and I don't know why."

That perked Dr. Thompson's ears up. He eased his posture and considered what she just said, going over his teachings in his head about how Scientology could explain this. Thetans were known to be manipulative, making people experience thoughts and emotions they should never have since the memories were collected from past lives. It was a bit strange to think that a Thetan could create a bond with another vessel at the same time as its current vessel. He considered calling one of the officers at his Church to see what they thought of the situation, but then he remembered that one of his members had an experience about a similar situation. The member, Reginald, had told him that he thought that he shared a Thetan with his dog, as he would have memories of being very short and running around in his house during his auditing sessions. Anyone else would have said, "that's fucking stupid," and indeed, Dr. Thompson  _did_  think it was fucking stupid at first, but now that this situation existed, he realized how Reginald might have been right.

"Patty, have you considered that you and this person you're bonded with may actually be sharing a Thetan?"

Patty looked up, eyes wide. She shook her head quickly.

"No, I don't even know what that shit is, sir."

Dr. Thompson was struggling to talk to this rude, rude girl in a polite manner, but he had a role to play. "A Thetan is a spirit that uses its mind as a control system between itself and the physical universe. The mind is not the brain, since our brains are more like telephone wires that communicate messages. Rather, it is what guides us."

Patty nodded as Dr. Thompson was talking, supposedly taking in what he was discussing. As he talked, his eyes roved over his shelves, noting all of his Scientology books and documents, feeling a swell of pride over the religion that he had once considered so silly. His eyes trailed back to Patty, who was still nodding along to what he was talking about. His finished explanation left a few seconds of silence as he let it sink in for her. She raised her hand, and he laughed, motioning for her to speak.

"Dr. Thompson," she started off, "I have no idea what you just said, but that totally makes sense, and I would be more interested in hearing about Scientology after this whole sex bond business is done."

_Sex bond?_

"Thanks for meeting with me about this during your office hours, your religion is weird but at least it tells me what I want to hear. I'll see what he thinks about it."

Patty got up, collecting her backpack and phone as she stood up to leave. Dr. Thompson blinked, still trying to process what had just been said. She saluted him and quickly walked out of the room, calling out, "thanks for your help!" before closing the door to leave Dr. Thompson alone with his computer and Scientology books. After a moment of processing that, he decided to write off the last bit about a sex bond and went back to his book for more studying.

\--------------------------------------------------

Mark did not take Patty's explanation well.

"I don't know about that," Mark said over the phone after one of their sessions ended. Patricia cradled the phone on her shoulder as she washed her toys, cleaning off her cum with hot water and the proper disinfectant. Patricia scoffed.

"Mark, Scientology is the answer to life, as a rich person, you should know this."

"I'm not really rich, you know," Mark responded, his voice taking on an air of irritation.

Patricia grinned but kept her voice neutral. "You're one of the most active idols of one of the biggest k-pop companies, bro, I don't know what else to tell you, but that's not the point: the point is we have to go to a Church of Scientology to get our emotions and feelings read by an e-meter as we talk about our childhood memories."

"Aren't emotions and feelings the same thing?"

"Mark!" Patty threw her toys into her sink, leaving them to float as she shook her head. She turned on the video call and put her hand up on camera to grab his attention. On Mark's side, his screen remained black. Patty hesitated for a moment, putting her hands down and tilting her head.

"I should probably ask before doing that, sorry," she said suddenly. "Do you want me to turn it off?"

Mark's voice sounded more concerned than anything else as he said, "Wait, do you want me to video you back?"

Patty struggled to keep her face neutral as she shrugged her shoulders. She heard some rustling and watched Mark's screen go from blank to showing his face, the background mostly of a ceiling fan's spinning blades. His face was bare. He looked at her with an eyebrow raised curiously. Patty felt her heart skip a beat as she realized what such a minor moment actually meant.

Almost three months had passed since KCON. Over time, they had been messaging and calling more frequently, although this was primarily limited to when their usual sessions were. When things were kept to just texting, Patty could see how Mark was relatively safe, since there was no way Patty could betray his trust and expose him to the public. For every phone call though (and now this), the amount of trust Mark seemed to be putting in her to not expose his image overwhelmed her sometimes. She had heard stories of what his stalkers did, and the other things fans had done to other idols and artists overall. The fact that Mark trusted her enough to talk to her over video meant a lot to her as a person but did nothing to stall the embarrassingly obvious crush she had on him; like right now, she felt the heat rising to her cheeks as her mind exploded from how handsome he looked bare-faced. She surmised that he either didn't notice or just didn't comment on it, since he just kept staring at her to continue talking. She high-key hoped it was the former.

Now that they were staring at each over video, Patty realized how gross her face probably looked. She felt compelled to apologize for her grotesque appearance in a nice, professional way so as not to make Mark uncomfortable or upset.

"I'm so sorry for my ogre appearance, Richie McRich," she said, immediately facepalming internally.

Mark's eyebrows furrowed as he narrowed his eyes. "Um. Don't worry about it, you look fine?"

"Why would you end that with a question," she said, holding back a laugh as the man struggled to respond to the situation appropriately. Mark made several unintelligible noises, clearly flustered. Suddenly, there was a knocking at his door.

"Come on Mark, we're leaving soon!"

Patty could hear Johnny's voice through the door and she squashed down any kind of fan excitement. Mark turned his head from the camera to look at the door to bark back that he was coming soon, just wait a moment. Johnny told him "okay" and presumably left. Mark looked back to the camera, his face apologetic.

"Sorry, we have some late night practice so I have to leave," he said.

"That's totally fine man," Patty said, nodding. "Go do your thing."

"Yeah. I'll see you later?"

"Are you saying you want to do this again?"

Mark looked startled, as if he didn't intend for his question to mean that. Patty was about to correct herself and ask him to explain when she saw him nod at her:

"Yeah, that works, sure. Bye!"

He waved at the camera as if on habit and their chat ended. Patty stared at the screen as she watched his Messenger status change to inactive. She put her phone down and focused on drying her toys, her mind instantly going over their discussion with a mix of excitement and paranoia. She wanted to call Crystal to help her figure it out, but...

She settled her toys on a paper towel on her counter before turning back to her mirror again, staring at her reflection. Try not to think too much. Enjoy what's going on. Things will work out. She turned away from her reflection and grabbed her phone, leaving her bathroom to start studying for her English final.

———————————

The photocard laid at the bottom of the trash bin, abandoned, along with the album, both of the items torn to shreds. On top of them was food detritus, dirt and such from the dorm floor, and several flyers promoting various college events that Patty either went to or decided to not care about. Next to the trash bin was Patty's bedside drawer, a copy of  _Dianetics_  on top of it, with  _Lord if the Rings_ ,  _Heart of Darkness_ , and  _Green Eggs and Ham_ , all stacked on top of each other next to  _Dianetics_. The room was filled with the sound of moaning as the bed besides the drawer shook back and forth slightly, both high-pitched and low-pitched moans sounding in the air.

"If you could just—shit, right there, thanks—"

"Of course, baby," Patty said, angling her dildo the way he (they) liked it. She threw her head back as she worked. "Mark, are your nipples sensitive? Asking for a friend."

"What friend would want to know that?" He huffed, clearly occupied with something else.

"I lied it's me I'm the friend can you please tell me so my fantasies can be confirmed."

"Patty, please, we're in the middle of something," Mark breathed out through the phone, his voice noticeably low as the sound of skin slapping together filled the rest of the audio from his side. Patty huffed back at him, bringing a hand up to her one of her nipples to twist it gently. She heard Mark mewl and she smiled, doing it again and twisting it a bit harder. Mark cried out and Patty jerked up from the sensation.

"I knew it," she breathed, immeasurable satisfaction flowing through her as she imagined his face contorting in pleasure.

Patty soon focused back on the task at hand, grabbing her massage wand to stimulate her clit while Mark touched himself on the other side. When Patty closed her eyes now she switched scenes, taking on the role of Mark as he touched himself. Unlike before, though, the scene didn't fade, and when she opened her eyes she went back to her own body.

"Hey Mark?"

Mark grunted in response, open to conversation, but it only being one-sided.

Patty continued, "Are you having this thing where when you close your eyes you see my body instead of yours?"

Mark faltered a bit in his movements, but then continued on, albeit more slowly.

"Yeah," he said. "Now that you mention it, that does happen to me."

"Oh," Patty whispered, feelings her cheeks flush and body heat up. She licked her lips. "That happens to me too."

After she said that, a silence followed that made the mood cool down. Patty took her hands off her body. She opened her mouth to say something but nothing came out. Then, she tried speaking and succeeded:

"For how long do you close your eyes?"

Mark's heavy breathing stopped in response. He didn't answer, kind of just freezing. Patty considered tapping her phone screen to see if it would knock him out of it but thought better of it, for now.

Instead, she said, "You can close them for however long you like. I'm fine with it."

She watched Mark pull his phone up to focus on his face. Mark closed his eyes, finally breathing out, the red in his cheeks prominent. He bit his lip. Patty watched him expectantly.

He opened his mouth to speak. Patty felt the noise around her deafen as she felt herself focus on him to a micro level.

"Yeah," He said softly. "I, uh, feel bad about it, you know—"

"Don't," she said back.

"I do," he said, voice beginning to tremble. Patty wanted to reassure him again but he continued, "If we had met any other way, it wouldn't matter. But..."

_You're my fan_  went unsaid, but it was heard all the same. Patty felt her heart drop and she thought back to Andy. Her eyes started burning and she bit her lip to stop tears from forming.

A part of her wanted to say something, anything that would help smooth the conversation she awkwardly imposed. She shouldn't have even brought it up. Should've just let the session run out and not thought about the people Mark was dating, and how she didn't find interest in anyone basically anymore, not even her new fuck buddy Ashley. Sex had become an itch to scratch unless it had to do with Mark, her sex bond partner.

She felt nauseous as she thought about that and tears started to fall from her eyes into her cheeks, the hot temperature making her cheeks warm as she felt her body quickly disengage entirely with the situation. In front of her, Mark stared off into the distance, his gaze unfocused. Time had come to a standstill.

"I don't know what to do, Patty," he said suddenly. Patty could  _feel_  the despair in his voice. "I'm trying not to take it out on you, but sometimes I just get really upset with this whole situation. Neither of us can really date anymore, and whoever we do date is gonna have to deal with this reality. It's not fair."

"I'm sorry," Patty said, throwing her head forward as her voice suddenly came out in a sob as she caved, forgetting everything else. Her body shook violently, her sheets getting wet from her tears as well as her sweat. "I'm so fucking sorry about all of this, Mark. I ruined your life and mine and you can't even return my feelings."

Mark's silence was all the answer Patty needed and her sobbing increased, her phone still being held up in her hand. After a few minutes, she brought her head up to look at the screen, angling the camera away from her so he wouldn't have to look at her probably destroyed face. When she saw the screen, Mark was still where he was before, gazing away from the camera. She had never seen him look so stressed out.

"Mark..."

"Please, don't say that," he said back. Patty could barely hear him talking so she increased her speaker volume.

"Okay, I won't say your name. Sorry."

"Not that," he snapped. Patty drew back, startled. "God, I'm sorry. I mean. I just. Fuck."

He ran a hand through his hair quickly, smoothing it back several times before continuing, "This whole situation is fucked. I've tried talking to people, mystics, even priests, and no one can tell me anything. My group mates are even worried because of how stressed out I've been lately, and even when we're in here in these sessions I can't concentrate, because I'm just thinking about how—"

Mark seemed to choke on his words, stopping mid-sentence. Patty waited for him until he stammered out, "How I'm starting not to mind this bond thing. How I'm becoming okay with it. I don't want to be but, at least it's not with someone inseparable, you know? Someone who would take advantage of it or just straight up reject me?"

Mark gulped and continued on, "So don't feel bad about it. Because you're not responsible for it, and you never will be."

He finally looked at the camera and smiled. Patty felt her stomach rise and she tentatively smiled back, although he couldn't see her.

"I don't mind it either. You closing your eyes or whatever, yeah. I don't mind it."

Patty breathed out, feeling her body relax. "Thanks, kid," she said.

"I'm not a kid, you know. Aren't we the same age anyway?"

"I'm like, a year older than you, which is a lot in high school years."

Mark laughed. "But I'm not in high school." His eyes widened then, frightened. "Wait, you're not either, right?"

"No Mark, I am of legal consenting age," she said, rolling her eyes. She faced the camera towards her after wiping away the tears on her face, hoping her grin would distract him from what the rest of her face looked like. "I have an adult body with an adult brain."

"Yeah," He said, smiling mischievously. Patty raised an eyebrow at him in question and he floundered around, trying to take back his statement. She held her hand palm forward to the camera.

"Mark, if you're attracted to me you know that's totally fine, right?"

"Yes," he said tentatively, as if testing the waters. "...and you're my fan, too."

"I mean, considering how I've had to deal with your ass pretty consistently outside of your usual performance, I'm pretty sure that relationship is a little more balanced now."

Mark stared her down but she kept eye contact with him despite the warmth in her cheeks. Surprisingly, she noticed that his face was also turning red.

"Maybe," he finally said. She quirked her eyebrow up at him higher. "I mean, I know you're not asking, but. Yeah."

"Oh my god Mark please," she said, putting her head in her hands. She heard him laugh nervously and she shook her head before bringing it up to look at him again. "If you want to date, I'm up for it, but that doesn't have to happen now. I can wait until you feel comfortable with it or whatever. And if you never feel comfortable with it, whatever to that too. We're all suffering on this bitch of an earth; I'll get through it."

Mark nodded in response. She waited for him to confirm or deny anything but he just changed the subject to asking about her week. For the time being, Patty decided to ignore it despite the stress it caused her, since it was pretty clear Mark needed to figure things out on his own. In the meantime Patty would just have to wait on him to figure it out. 


	4. realizing + finale

The rain kept coming down even though it had been a dry week thus far. Mark stared out the window of NCT's apartment, watching the raindrops hit the window as he thought about how he hadn't gotten off since his discussion with Patty.

To be honest, he didn't really consider himself a super sexually active person. He heard about guys that jacked off everyday but that wasn't his style; he was more of a several times a week guy. Regardless, this didn't drop some of the more perverted members from teasing him, since everyone at this time basically knew he was single and not successfully mingling.

The moment Patty had called him out, he had felt the attack hit him straight to his core. Looking at her he still only saw her as his fan, thinking back to the deer in the headlights look she had given him when they first met. They could hold eye contact now, but there were times when they would be talking and he could tell that she was getting overwhelmed, dipping her head shyly and smiling fondly at him.  _Cute_ , his brain supplied, and he quickly shook it to take that thought out of his head forever.

He knew that in other genres of music dating a fan wasn't as serious. He also knew that if anyone figured out that was happening (and with a foreigner, no less), his career could be potentially destroyed. At the same time, the chance of anyone finding out that a popular artist in South Korea was even remotely involved with a fan living in the United States also seemed pretty slim, and considering the circumstances that went down with it, he doubted anyone had picked up on his behavior as suspicions for a relationship.

Still. He had a career to build.

He knew that Patty's life was pretty much guaranteed a good living—she told him that she was studying IT and planned on working for some software company out of college, and that she had already done an internship with one—he couldn't say the same thing about his own life. Music was risky, and even with all of the work he had put in for the last couple of years, it didn't guarantee that he could make it all the way through.

A particularly harsh wave of rain hitting the window startled him out of his thoughts and he blinked, mind clearing.

The bond would probably remain for a long time though, since it had been almost six months with it, and there was no expert who could give him clear advice on how to stop it. The only sure advice he had gotten (which he chose to not tell Patty) was that, since the bond was based on sexual pleasure, perhaps a full union would "complete" the bond and make it dissipate afterwards. He couldn't deny that he would be totally fine to having sex with Patty, but he didn't want to lead her on with her feelings anymore than he may have been doing.

But as he thought about it, was he really? He wanted to try, too. Not as serious, but casual. It wouldn't be something he was used to but it could be fun, and with someone like her it could work. His mind provided a picture of her in his mind briefly and he smiled, then wiped it off his face the moment he realized he was smiling.

He went back to staring at the rain on the window, alone as always.

——————————————

Patty tried not to think of herself as pathetic, even though she totally was. It had been a while since she had bought three, not one, but three tubs of Ben and Jerry's, and considering she had just finished her third tub in the first hour of her scarfing down ice cream, it was going to be four.

Her roommate stared at her, transfixed, as Patty's fuck buddy Ashley handed her another tub from her own secret stash.

"You are a goddess among men," Patty said as she scarfed down ice cream for the hundredth time. Ashley nodded, knowing that this was a truth that few recognized. Patty's roommate stared for a second more before deciding to get the fuck outta there and go out clubbing to avoid the eventual make-up sex the both of them had (or was it just normal sex? Had they ever dated? These thoughts occupied the roommate's mind too much these days). After the roommate waved goodbye to Patty and Ashley, Ashley turned to Patty and silently waited. She didn't have to wait long.

"I mean, it's not like I'm in love with him or anything," Patty whined. Ashley nodded. "I was just hoping to have his cock in my ass at some point for real, you know?"

"We've all been there," Ashley said. "Except for me, of course, because I take plastic dick, not flesh dick."

"Yeah, I know," Patty said. Then, she started sobbing for a bit and went back to her ice cream. Her phone lit up and she sighed dramatically before picking it up. She stared at the screen, body frozen as she took in what was in front of her. Ashley froze her body alongside hers, barely blinking as she watched Patty analyze the text conversation in front of her with someone named

"Boo".

Patty swallowed the rest of her ice cream and put it down on her bedside drawer, using both hands to type back a message. She waited for a bit and then typed back again, the same process being repeated as Ashley simply stared.

Ashley liked to think that she was cognizant enough to be able to read a situation just by observing a subject in front of her. Patty's drawn, tight eyebrows, pursed lips, wide eyes and quick, jerky movements showed that she was stressed about something, but not so stressed that she was throwing her phone across the room. She only did that when they were having sex and Patty happened to check a notification on her phone that said she had a paper that was due in 30 minutes that she hadn't even started yet. It seemed that the situation here, then, wasn't too dire.

Patty looked up from her phone to glance at Ashley. Ashley widened her eyes and slightly nodded, prompting her to speak. Patty opened her mouth to speak but only a small screech came out. She went back to typing and Ashley went back to watching.

Ashley thought back to when they first had sex. They had hooked up at a house party after their mutual friends introduced them to each other and both of them had tried making their own margaritas and poured way too much alcohol in both. Considering that they both had crushes on other people at the time, it only made sense for them to continue to have sex if their actual romantic interests weren't working out. Patty was great to be around, but she was also a lot to handle when she got too emotional, and she was also not a lesbian which, biphobia noted, Ashley was not so into. So, they stayed as fuck buddies.

When Patty told her she was in love with a pen pal in South Korea and may never see him again but he was also rich and could totally just come over and have sex with her if he wanted to but didn't because he was also super busy, she was a little suspicious. A little sus. A little suspect. Patty refused to show a picture of him to her, and when they talked on the phone his voice was not a cool, rich businessman voice that Ashley had anticipated from the many, many romantic comedies her mom had made her watch as a child. However, Patty was hooked on the guy, and her and Patty were somewhat friends, even though they only met up to have sex or get drunk and have sex. One or the other, sometimes with weed involved.

Ashley was trying to remember the last time she had smoked when she heard Patty gasp loudly next to her and start cursing excitedly. She watched as Patty looked at her with a huge smile and show her a text conversation.

Boo:

—i was thinking about it yeah and i don't think its fair for me to say i like you but wont date you bc of something we cant control now

Patty:

—oh????????

Boo:

—i want to take things really, really slow but that doesn't mean I don't want to try anything

Patty:

—??????????????????????

Boo:

—Patty please. I'm trying to be serious

Patty:

—Not as serious as the dick sucking I'm gonna give you

—Ignore that

—okay, that works for me

Boo:

—I rescind my previous comment

Patty:

—mark it was a joke please understand and then laugh

Boo:

—Haha, so funny. Please take this seriously.

Patty:

—ok

"You see this shit?" Patty asked Ashley, who nodded. "Modern goddamn romance right here. This calls for some Yeah Boy for three hours."

She quickly switched apps to YouTube and played the "My longest boy ever" video, amping up the volume and jumping down to start dancing (badly) to it. Ashley watched, transfixed, and then closed YouTube before Patty could slut drop.

"Patty, are you taking this seriously?"

Patty looked at Ashley, who looked back at her. She nodded, lips set and eyes determined.

"I am, yeah," she said in a clear, strong voice. The tears on her face had dried off and she went to take the Ben and Jerry's to the fridge so it wouldn't melt. She came back and nodded at her phone.

"Now please, keep playing that 'yeah boi'!" Patty demanded.

Ashley reluctantly put it back on and watched Patty slut drop for the next 10 minutes before going to leave to sleep in her own room.

———————————————————

Their sessions changed after that, obviously. The pet names that Patty had ironically been using became unironic, and the subtle but serious drops of interest Mark used had actual weight to them. Their usual phone conversations post-sex were now split before and after, going well over two hours before one or the other had to leave for school (Patty) or fall asleep (Mark).

Throughout the day, messages were sent, thirst-related or not, and responses ranged from instant to three-hour lapses. The two had lately discovered that Patty's winter break was the same week that Mark had a very, very short break period and the two were left hanging on how to deal with the newfound opportunity.

Patty:

—Mark

Boo:

—i know

Patty:

—what do you know? Not sure how to take that phrasing sweet cheeks

Boo:

—i honestly think that's the worst name you've come up with yet

—and i mean, i know that break is coming up for both of us

Patty:

—[several party emojis followed with one tongue-out emoji]

Boo:

—I'm not sure. Might see family.

Will have to see

Patty:

—why r u addressing this like a business memo also

—I'm amazed you understood that from my emojis

Boo:

—we have emoji training classes at sm

[Patty responded with a laugh reaction]

Patty:

—oh shit!!! Now i gotta find a way into sm so i can use this properly!!

Boo:

—hurry, auditions are soon!

Patty:

—shit really??

Boo:

—no, i was kidding about everything.

Patty:

— :(

—you're still gonna come over so we can have gratuitous amounts of sex tho right

Boo:

—so eager.

—why don't you come over here?

Patty:

—Richie McRich is your name, not mine

—besides my parents would never allow me to leave the US

 i had to beg them to come to New York for KCON remember that

Boo:

—ok. I'll have to get back to you on it bc i will be seeing my family

Patty:

—of course :) that's understandable

—i just mean in your downtime [looking eyes emoji]

Boo:

—I'll have to get back to you

[Patty sent a photo]

Boo:

—damn, that's just not fair, baby

Patty:

—i like it when you call me that. Do it again?

Boo:

—ok

—baby, don't tease me like this

Patty:

—when do you get off [licking tongue emoji]

Boo:

—way too much time, in the middle of work. After?

Patty:

—ok but u better give it to me good

Boo:

—i won't disappoint

"Patty, yo, are you seriously sexting right now when we're supposed to be hanging out?"

Patty looked up from her phone, cheeks flushed and eyes wide in guilt. "Sorry?"

Crystal shook her head, rolling her eyes while pressing play on the vine compilation video they had been watching, "vines to listen to while you scream for death". She had stopped on the vine where the guys got into a car with a bunch of balloons and it was about to make the car soar up, and the guys got mad at the one guy that brought the balloons with him.

"Hey man, you can text the boy anytime, but I won't be able to see you after finals, man," Crystal said. Patty nodded, remembering that she had to go home to her parents in Ohio for the break while Patty stayed behind to stay with a friend in their apartment. Considering that next year would be both of their last years in college, it was important that they spent time together since they were both in different fields, Crystal in education and Patty in IT.

"I'm sorry Crystal, hold on," Patty said, coming over to sit beside her. They watched the vine finish and sat watching the following vines, laughing intermittently in-between periods of silence before Crystal turned to her. Patty looked over and waited for her to say something.

"So, do you talk to Ashley anymore?" Crystal asked, eyes searching for something as she waited for Patty's reply.

Patty shook her head and looked back at the screen. "She was there when Mark asked me out. She understood, she's cool."

"Alright, as long as she wasn't catching feelings."

Patty scoffed, saying, "Ashley doesn't date bisexuals or transgender lesbians, so I doubt she would have any."

"She only dates cis lesbians?"

"Yeah."

"That's..."

"Regardless, I'm done with that. I may have the chance to have actual physical sex soon, though." Patty saw Crystal's mouth widen from the corner of her eye and she smirked.

"Mark's coming here, right?" Crystal asked, her interest still divergent from the vine compilation in front of them. The six-second compilation in front of them dropped into the background with their sudden discussion.

Patty nodded her head back and forth, worrying her lip a bit. "I mean, he said he would have to figure things out, but I think he's gonna come see me after he stays with his family for a few days."

"Nice! Congrats and good luck boo!" Crystal said. She gave her friend a thumbs-up and a shoulder bump, a double whammy of platonic support. Patty's grin widened and she dipped her head shyly.

"Yeah, it's nice..."

Suddenly, Crystal's body froze as she stared resolutely ahead, thinking deeply about something. "Can you imagine what the bond would do if there was physical contact between you two in real-time? Shit, that could be intense."

Patty wanted to reassure her that it wouldn't be that intense, but she had been thinking about that too. She released her lip for a moment to run her tongue over the bottom, thinking of the cosmic (and sexual) consequences of a full union of the bond. She was hoping that all that would happen would be that they would feel super intense pleasure that could possibly knock them out, but part of her was scared that she would die from the intensity of the waves. Not only that, but it would be the first time she would have seen Mark in almost six months, and although she generally didn't have performance anxiety, a part of her worried that he would instantly lose his feelings the moment they were physically together. Despite the fact that they had been dating for a while now, she still worried that he would one day call everything off and think she wasn't enough for him because she had been a fan (after they had started dating, she noted that her predilection of NCT waned to a casual interest, and she really only turned her attention to k-pop when Crystal told her about it). The day still hadn't come but she continued to consider it every once in a while.

When Patty still hadn't responded to her question, Crystal realized that her friend had a lot more doubts about things than she realized. She put her hand on her shoulder to reassure her and motioned her hand to invite her to talk. Patty laughed and shook her head.

"No, I'll be fine boo, it's okay," she told Crystal. After considering Crystal's face, she continued, "I gotta figure some stuff out on my own. It's just my low self-esteem and shit."

"That sucks, boo," Crystal responded. Patty shrugged. "Well, if you need to talk, I'm here."

Patty clamped her hand back on her friend's shoulder to reciprocate the gesture. They both stared into each other's eyes intensely until a scream broke out from the computer as someone got hit with a bat, and they both laughed on instinct as the person doubled over in pain. Really, "rip vine compilations" fixed everything.

—————————————————-

Time passed, and Crystal waved goodbye to Patty as she left. Patty waved back and went into her apartment to spend more time playing video games with very low resolution. As she played games, she wondered about Mark; he said he'd come by the next day in the afternoon, but she still felt like it was so surreal. She glanced at her copy of  _Dianetics_  and wondered about her professor's Thetan theory for the last time.

——————————

There appeared a white room, thousands of dots floating around of various colors while the sound of white noise intensifies and deafens and then weakens and disappears, leaving nothing but silence. A distinct absence of smell followed by the usual feelings of gravity, now added with uncertainty with new surroundings. Patty stood buck-ass naked in limbo while the world seemed to collapse around her.

She wondered how she got here, briefly, before noticing another body below her curled up on the ground. It was Mark, also naked.

"Mark? You alive?" She asked, going down to poke him in the back. His moan and stirring assured her he was still breathing, probably.

"You see what I'm seeing? Don't remember taking edibles before we fucked."

Mark got up at that, looking around, eyes getting wider as he noticed everything around them was just...white. He looked behind him to stare at Patty incredulously. He waved his hand, pinched his cheek and stood up to run towards the direction of blank whiteness in front of him. As he ran, he felt something pass through his body, and he eventually saw Patty again as he kept running forward. He stopped in front of her, breathing hard, heart beating faster than ever.

"What the fuck is going on," Mark asked, breathless and afraid. Patty shrugged, clearly not as affected.

They stood next to each other for a second, thinking about what had happened beforehand. Patty didn't fully understand why, but she knew now that her thoughts were Mark's, and vice versa, so she took a second to relive what they had experienced only a little bit ago before limbo.

She watched as Mark thought about how he had waited for her to pick him up by her car from the train station. She felt his goosebumps at seeing her and being around her finally after so long. Their chaste kiss felt like something he had never felt before, since when he kissed her, the bond made him feel the pleasure twice and then echo it back and forth.

Mark flashed forward to thinking about them in her apartment, things getting heavy as both felt the hotness of their bodies and the bond intensify. He remembers pushing Patty down on her bed and climbing over her, kissing her hard while trailing a hand up her body to cup and squeeze her breast. He swallowed her moan and bit her lip while she gripped his back tighter, inching his shirt off until she could run her hand down his naked back.

Mark had had sex before, but doing it with an alien bond thing made it twice as intense. He could feel everything twice more so than before and he loved every second of it. Part of his brain was still freaking out over any of this happening, but the other half threw that worry away and went on auto-pilot.

By the time all their clothes had been thrown off to the floor, Mark remembered scissoring her open with his fingers and testing out pushing inside. They both groaned audibly. Patty gripped his bicep, the sweat on her brow and chest catching Mark's attention. Mark bent down to lick at her chest up to her nipple, biting down on it gently as he pushed slowly inside her. Patty moaned even louder, pushing her body lower to meet his cock halfway. Mark began thrusting in and out while Patty moved with him, both maintaining eye contact except when the other would break off moaning out loud with the intensity of it.

Patty watched Mark frown in front of her in real time in limbo, trying to understand where things had gone wrong through there. Patty blinked and looked away, wondering the same.

From her memory, she remembered staring at her bedside drawer as Mark pounded into her, breathing heavy and clawing his back slightly, when she remembered her focus on the book that had come to mean so much to her:  _Dianetics_. She thought back to how she theorized their Thetans were connected, and as she did the world seemed to become more and more unfocused until she woke up in limbo.

"Oh my god Mark," Patty said. Mark looked at her shocked face, waiting for her to speak. "I think we did it. We reunited our Thetans and cleansed them. We...we saved ourselves from evil."

Mark kept staring at her. She kept staring at him. The lack of smell, breeze, color, and anything else for either to focus on made it difficult to stare at anything else.

Mark shifted his gaze for a second to the white and then landed it back on Patty. "I still don't understand. Can you explain more of what you mean?"

"I can't."

And from there, Mark felt the horror of their situation finally creep into him. He slowly fell to the ground, Patty quickly falling suit, as he mourned the loss of his reality and his absorption into another. He thought about all the stuff he was gonna miss out on since there was probably no way they were gonna get out of this, and he felt like crying.

Around them, the white walls were quietly torn down and replaced by an enveloping black darkness as the two were slowly re-absorbed into the universe to make new stars and galaxies. Their split Thetan released and was spurned outside of them, floating up towards Xenu's planet.

As one, they looked around the universe, observing the billions of stars, rocks, and planets around them. Their gaze settled on a White man in his 70s floating next to a water planet.

"Good job", he said, giving them a thumbs-up. They knew immediately who the man was. "You did it. You did Scientology."

He then faded away, as did their shared consciousness as they were fully absorbed into the universe at last. 


End file.
